2015 - Page 14 of 16 - Fulbright Student Program Blog

Baking Ereba, Building Community

April 2, 2015

Kia Hall, 2011-2012, Honduras, baking Ereba in Ciriboya, Iriona, Honduras

During the 2011-2012 academic year, I had a Fulbright U.S. Student grant to Honduras. My research was about the women who bake cassava bread in the Afro-indigenous Garifuna community. In the Garifuna language, cassava bread is called ereba (uh-ray-buh). I studied how the women are using culinary tradition of ereba making as a means to economic development. Below is a picture of me trying to actually bake some ereba, which is harder than it looks.

In Honduras, I was also a cultural ambassador. Through my research I met a Garifuna woman, Lina Hortensia Martinez, who buys ereba in the villages and sells flavored cassava chips in the city. I built a bilingual website for her organization. You can take a look at http://www.wabagari.com.

As a doctoral candidate in International Relations, my Fulbright experience launched my research career, and I have presented my findings throughout the country and in Latin America. My Fulbright experience was also life changing and deepened my understanding of development issues and challenges. Previously, many of them were only scholarly concepts before they came to life in my community experiences. I am forever indebted to the communities of Ciriboya, Punta Piedra and Cusuna, in the Iriona region of Honduras, where I was based during my 10-month stay.

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U.S. Fulbright

The 2016-2017 Fulbright U.S. Student Program Competition is Now Open!

March 31, 2015

March 31, 2015 marks the start of the 2016-2017 Fulbright U.S. Student Program competition!

If you’re new to the program, we strongly recommend that you check out our online tutorials.

Fulbright U.S. Student Program tutorials are up-to-date, online slideshow videos designed for applicants and Fulbright Program Advisers (FPAs) to learn program and application basics. Since some tutorials may be prerequisite for attending webinars, we recommend applicants and FPAs take time to review them before registering. Check the Fulbright Events section of the website regularly for schedule changes and updates.

Make sure to attend the first webinar of the season on Wednesday, April 8 at 2:00 p.m. EST. To register and learn more, click here.

Good luck!

Tutorial – Intro to the Fulbright U.S. Student Program from Fulbright Program on Vimeo.

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The Simple Things That Matter

March 26, 2015

Charles M. Hornstra, 2012-2013, Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to Malaysia (sixth from right, in green shirt), with the SMK Indahpura Dodgeball Team posing for a picture in the rain after practice

Living on the outskirts of a jungle, adapting to different spicy foods, eating with your hands, bearing the relentless heat, and being the only foreigner in the community who does not speak the native language were all experiences that quickly became a part of my life while living in Kulaijaya, Malaysia, as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant at SMK Indahpura.

At the beginning of the year, most of the students were excited to see me, but many of them would only stare from afar and avoid interaction for fear of having to use their English. After a few weeks of embarrassing myself through games, lessons, and many awkward attempts to get a laugh, I finally was able to gain the trust of the students while forming one of the most amazing bonds that I have ever experienced in my life–one that I will never forget.

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Building a Boy a Bionic Arm: The Spirit of Shared, Open Sourced Technology

March 13, 2015

I am convinced we live in an ever shrinking world. Following my bachelor’s degree in Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at the University of Central Florida (UCF), my research professor, Dr. Seetha Raghavan, gave me an incredible opportunity to participate in my first international experience. Just a few weeks later I landed in Köln, Germany, for a 10-week exchange with the German Aerospace Center (DLR). As my first experience immersed in a new culture, my entire view of the world was changed. Our collaboration developed to produce cutting edge research for jet engine blade protective coatings, using X-Rays to look inside the materials while replicating the extreme environments inside the fiery engine.

After earning my master’s degree in Engineering in Aerospace (MSAE), Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering in 2014, I found myself facing a similar opportunity. Just eight weeks after my graduation and wedding, my wife and I arrived in Frankfurt for our yearlong adventure. The challenge was clear: the Fulbright Program was designed to encourage global innovation and mutual understanding. Learning these skills has proved immensely valuable for my research, but also for my personal life.

Alex Pring first tries his new bionic arm. Photo Credit: KT Crabb Photography

What I learned in the process is that global innovation and collaboration should continue outside normal business hours. Just days before arriving in Germany, my summer project of building a 3D printed bionic arm was completed and donated to a six-year-old boy. Before knowing the magnitude of the dream we set out on, our story went global and was featured in news media in every corner of the globe (and, more recently Robert Downey Jr. met that same six-year-old boy, Alex Pring, generating a viral video). Then, the requests began to pour in from families in the United States, Brazil, England, India, Australia….and more. As a team, we uploaded our design on the Internet so that people around the world could build their own bionic arm for less than $350 USD. Together, we have shared a very powerful dream: of engineering hope. The spirit of shared, open source technology is beginning to empower children all over the world.

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Foreign Fulbright

Stories of Women and the Correctional System in Ecuador: Literature, Art and Design

March 12, 2015

Cristian Mogrovejo, 2004-2006, Ecuador (left), and Rodrigo Muñoz receiving funding for the Stories of Imprisoned Women project from the U.S. Embassy in Ecuador

It has been almost a decade since I completed my Master of Fine Arts in Industrial Design at the Rochester Institute of Technology as a Fulbright Student from Ecuador, but the lessons I learned from that time are still professionally and personally valuable to me to this day. Ever since that life-changing experience, I have become increasingly aware of my responsibility to society and to efforts to promote positive change. One way in which I have been able to promote change at home, is as a design instructor at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, where I encourage students to think about their work in terms of ideas and solutions to current social issues.

One day, one of my former students, Rodrigo Muñoz (currently pursuing an MFA in Design for Social Innovation at the School of Visual Arts in New York City), a colleague and good friend, shared his idea about working together to help address the issue of the living conditions of imprisoned Ecuadorian women. From that day forward, our project was born; we called it: Stories of Imprisoned Women: Literature and Art as Exercises in Empowerment, Rights and Identity.

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Un Natale Viterbese

March 5, 2015

Card games on Christmas at Valentina’s house (clockwise from front center: Sara Hales, 2014-2015, Fulbright English Teaching Assistant to Italy, Alessandro Foti, Giulio Merlani, Alessandro Petricca, Valentina Petricca, Federico Fuser, Chiara Fersini, Daniele Ragni, Cristiano Petrini, Riccardo delle Monache, Cristina Cecchetti I spent Christmas Eve and Day with one of my teachers, Orietta

I’ve been putting off writing this post because I don’t really know where to begin in describing my Italian Christmas experience. Throughout December, I anxiously anticipated my first Christmas away from my family with a mixture of excitement and dread. The holiday itself here in Viterbo, Italy, where I am working as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA), was likewise a mixture of the familiar and the new. As I walked through the bancarelle downtown, I got to see, smell, and participate in the charming European tradition of the Christmas market. But even this became a reminder of the commercialism of Christmas that many in the United States have tried to move away from. Italy is not immune from the commercialization of Christmas, and many that I’ve met here have expressed disdain for the market booths filled with useless trinkets. I was quite pleased, however, to discover a box of Christmas decorations in my apartment, so in true American fashion, I put them up the day after Thanksgiving.

A few days later, a friend came over and was surprised to see my decorations already displayed. Locals decorate for Christmas on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8. So I had jumped the gun, but this was luckily rectified by my adopted family who invited me over to have lunch and help them decorate their home on December 8.

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